


Doctor line - do not cross

by Hope



Category: Firefly, Serenity (2005)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-09-13
Updated: 2005-09-13
Packaged: 2017-10-03 10:41:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hope/pseuds/Hope
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set just after "Trash"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Doctor line - do not cross

**Author's Note:**

> For Claire &amp; Mary.

The neck brace makes it like he has gorram horse blinkers, he never realised how _gos se_ his peripheral vision really was until he finds out he has to turn his entire rutting body every time he sees something in the corner of his eye, which seems to result in a lot of near-pulled muscles and a lot of times where something suggests he just missed a smirk on Mal's face. Or Zoë's. or Wash's.

Gorram sons of bitches. At least Kaylee has some sympathy, though he ain't sure how thankful he's feeling towards her right now, what with the not-warning-him about the gorram live circuit on the giant trash can he'd been clinging to. Jayne don't like to think what would have happened if they'd decided to skip the safety-line side of things, with only Kaylee's skinny little arms -- hefty engine tools or no -- to catch him before he fell in the water. Probably woulda been dead on impact. Exploded or something. Nothing the doc could have done about that.

He's been tiptoeing around Mal for some time now, so it ain't like he expected sympathy from him. Ain't like he can expect sympathy from the doc now, either, and he ain't never expected any from the other Tam, and the Shepherd's refusal to spot him or even let him spot while he's still all braced up only makes him mighty irritated instead of touched.

Not that he's feeling sorry for himself. Just a little… hot and bothered, what with all the nearly-dying, especially now the sedative's worn off and he's stopped running into things. Well, almost. It ain't lack of coordination that makes him trip a little on the ledge that leads into the doc's room, it's more the fact that the brace stops him from tipping his head forward and looking where he's going.

The doc looks up as Jayne catches himself on the wall, expression rapidly darkening into a frown as Jayne straightens, attempts to lounge where he's caught himself, resulting in a sharp twinge somewhere between his shoulder blades and turning his suggestive expression into a frown.

"Jayne," Simon says, not masking his near-irritation. "What are you _doing_ here?"

"Thought we could--" Jayne re-instates the leer. "Relieve a little mutual tension."

Simon blinks. "Out." He says at length. "Get out."

"But you said--"

"_Jayne._ Get _out_."

Jayne gits. Gorram doctors, could never understand their scribbly writing or way of speaking, can't ever say anything plain, always liked to give him a word for what him what he was suffering from instead of a cure to get rid of it.

He falls down the last six steps into his bunk. Useless piece of _fei-oo_ neck brace.

*

The girl's torn all the labels off the gorram cans and pasted them like wallpaper over the cupboard doors in the kitchen, so Jayne scowls and makes an unlucky guess on one of the blank cans, and is stuck with reconstituted protein curd that slides out like jelly out of a mold when he upends it. _Cold_ reconstituted protein curd; River's also managed to switch around the dials on the stove so that no matter how hard he jiggles them (or how many times he bellows for Kaylee and her tool-kit), they don't budge.

The curd tastes like it's been fermented in someone's armpit and the coffee he tries to wash it down with has spent several hours too long on the hotplate, so he decides to surrender, at last, to the fact that maybe breakfast just weren't meant to be. At least no one else is around to witness the defeat -- the ship's pretty quiet for this time of day; maybe the captain's getting nekkid on the cargo deck again, and everyone else is there for the show.

Jayne trips on the stairs on the way out, and maybe the ship ain't so deserted after all, because he struggles to his feet again to see Wash staring at him from the bridge, smirking entirely unapologetically. Gorram pilots.

*

"Doc," he hisses from the door of the infirmary, feeling inexplicably awkward as he watches Simon's back, straight, with his head tilted down as he fiddles with doctor-y stuff on the bench. The sister's lounging on the couch on the far side of the room, her eyes all creepifying and starey, and when he looks back the doc's looking at him too, the blue light making their eyes all dark and the same. Jayne shifts uncomfortably. "When can I take this gorram brace off?"

Simon's silent for a moment, watching him fidget. "Not yet," he says, and turns back around. Without further consultation. Jayne could swear that gorram girl has her tongue poked out at him before he whipped around to lookit her again, and her bares his teeth at her then bolts before she can open her mouth to whine.

*

Kaylee pats him on the head with her free hand as she's putting his plate in front of him, and it makes him start a little but at least he's learnt now that tilting his entire upper body back to peer up at her would merely serve as further amusement to the rest of the people at the table, so Jayne stays content to start shoveling the food in front of him into his mouth, chewing around a fierce frown.

"My, my," Mal says, after the first wave of stuffing-faces around the table has ebbed. "Ain't that a pretty collar you got there, Jayne."

Jayne deepens his scowl, shoveling harder. "It ain't a collar," he spits. "It's a brace. For my spine."

"Oh, and now look what you've done, you've gone and got food on it…" Kaylee leans over the table to dab at the brace with a napkin, and he flaps her hand away.

"Don't matter, not like I can _see_ it," he says, and dips his tongue out to lick at the food caught in his beard. Kaylee makes a face.

"So tell me, Jayne," Wash interjects, and from the tone of his voice, Jayne just knows something _funny's_ gonna come out. "Were the etiquette and fashion schools you attended part of the same facility?"

Jayne ain't sure exactly what an eddi-kit is, but he's willing to bet it's something to do with beard-grooming, possibly involving little scissors and brushes in a case. He answers Wash with an exaggerated sneer, which Wash returns half-heartedly before Zoë slaps a hand on his thigh under the table. He can see the doc ain't impressed either from what little vision he has at the corner of his eyes, and it must be from the antics of those two, because he's seen Jayne's table manners plenty in the times they've eaten together. Gorram married couples.

"May I be excused?" River says, as polite as if she were at some fancy dinner party, and Jayne's reminded of Maddy playing favourites off Ma. Jayne'd always played it best in the other direction, and slurps loudly off his spoon without even looking at her.

*

This time he manages to step through the doorframe without incident, and is somewhat relieved at the fact that he don't have to do no lounging this time; Simon's asleep already, though the light's still on, half-propped up with pillows crushed under his shoulders, chin down and mouth wide open. Jayne steps forward as quietly as he can, and reaches in to remove the book from where it's sprawled inconveniently in the doc's lap. A hand reaches out and grips his wrist and he freezes, tilts his upper body back again to look into the doc's bleary eyes.

"What?" he says when Simon doesn't speak, and the doc rolls his eyes a little, coming more awake.

"Do you have _no_ brain at all? Did I mistakenly diagnose you? Did you hit your head? Surely you weren't _always_ this stupid. No, wait…"

"Hell," Jayne says, refusing to let go of the book, though it's not like the doc's grip is pulling him away, just stopping him. "I ain't stupid. I heard what you said, you said we got to trust each other. Because you _don't see this working any other way._ And hell, if I'm stupid for misinterpretin' _that_, when I know how much using fancy language makes you hot…" He tilts his body a little further forward, breathing heavy, hoping the doc'll hurry up and take the hint before that pinch between his shoulders locks him in that position forever.

Simon blinks. "I didn't know you could remember things verbatim," he says.

Jayne ain't quite sure what the doc means by that, but it sounds like something kinky. Maybe something the doc did to him while he was still under. The doc don't have a smirk like the Captain's right now, so it probably wasn't something _bad_, and Jayne risks leaning forward a little more.

"_Jayne,_" the doc says finally, one hand on Jayne's chest pushing him back, the other still gripping around Jayne's wrist and lifting it, moving it, shaking it a little to get Jayne's hand to deposit the book on the nightstand. The doc swings his feet off the side of the bed, sits up properly, and Jayne manages to straighten without wincing. The doc places his hands over the buttons of his rumpled vest like he's liable to start unbuttoning at any moment, and gives Jayne a hard stare. "_Out_."

Jayne's back crashes into the doorframe on his way out, and he scowls before he turns, stepping out carefully and slamming the sliding door closed behind him. Gorram tease.

*

He don't even try for breakfast the next day, so he's right ornery when it comes to what serves as early afternoon in out the black, gut all chewing itself up from the inside and the rest of him all restless energy without use of the bench press to burn it off. No matter how much strutting around like a puffed-up peacock Inara had done after bringing back that rich guy's laser gun, it weren't worth nothing until they got it to a buyer, and then onto a world somewhere where Kaylee could insist they pick up some fresh fruit and foodstuffs to make some meals what were actually _edible_.

When he turns back from peering extensively into the now torn-open cupboards, the gorram crazy Tam is standing right behind him, and he starts, and swears, and flinches in anticipation of the twinge in his neck. "Found you," the girl says, all wide open grin, and holds something up in her hand.

He has to step back and lean forward a little til he's at an angle to see it, and as soon as he does she gives an almighty shriek and bolts. She's got good instincts on that side of things, at least, but Jayne was hired by the Captain for his tracking skills, so he gives a roar before giving chase, only to find he's stopped quite abruptly only a few steps on by a kitchen chair to the groin.

"_Tah mah duh hwoon dahn_ I am going to _cut your hands off_ little girl, and your gorram legs too, if you don't…" he descends into wordless angry-pain noises just before Kaylee jogs into the room, not that he notices her at first, bent over and clutching at himself, teetering around in a little circle. Her face appears abruptly in his field of vision, and he gives a little shout before taking up the thread of cussing he'd abandoned earlier.

Kaylee's unconcerned by his agony. "What did she do? Did she kick you?" she seems more amused than anything else. "Knee you? Make you punch yourself in some clever piece of choreography?" So much for sympathetic.

"She stole my gorram goggles," he grits, attempting to straighten and clenching his jaw.

"Your _goggles_?" Kaylee's hand had started petting ineffectually at his back, but it stills now. "Oh come on now, Jayne, what do you need them for? We're at least a week away from our next set-down, and that ain't gonna be on no dusty moon."

"They're _my_ goggles," Jayne insists, beginning to hobble toward the doorway the _fong luh_ girl had disappeared through. "And she took 'em."

Kaylee's hand grips the back of his tee-shirt and pulls him back a little, which is a little harder to resist than Jayne'd like to admit. She maneuvers him onto the very kitchen chair that may have just culled millions of wild oats that still needed sowing, and gives him another quick pat on the back. "Never you mind, Jayne, I'll find her." And she strides cheerfully in the opposite direction.

"Hey!" Jayne calls after her. "She went that way!" Kaylee don't come back, so he yells a little louder. "And don't forgit my goggles!"

*

When he comes to the dinner table that night it's to find River sitting in the very same chair, wearing -- though he ain't really surprised about it, considering the distinct absence of Kaylee from his person for the whole afternoon -- his goggles. And not up on her forehead, either. Over her eyes, like she's protecting herself from dangerous fumes rising up from the stew-thing they've all got set before them. It sure smells poisonous. Mal's already watching Jayne with that _hwoon dahn_ twist to his mouth, so Jayne makes a point of ignoring the crazy goggle-wearing girl and sitting down without giving them any more dinnertime entertainment.

Which ain't entirely successful. The first mouthful of stew ends up spat back out violently, spraying half over the lamp centerpiece and mostly onto the neck brace. Jayne chokes a little, grabs for his mug of water.

Kaylee grins brightly. "It's a bit of a shock, I know, but we were running out of everything else anyway, so I thought I might as well use up the rest of the chilli powder. Do you like it?"

Jayne blinks back tears to find River staring at him, eyes big behind the scuffed plastic lenses of the goggles. "_Oleoresin_," she says somberly. "From _ capsicum annuum_. May be used for joint and muscle pains."

"River helped me cook it," Kaylee continues. "Isn't it great?"

Gorram women.

*

It's dark when he slides open the door to the doc's bunk, and it makes him hesitate at the door, not because he ain't sure about what he's doing there, but because he's learnt his lesson now, and knows that any bit of the room is liable to jump up in front of him and trip him up at any moment. He ain't been there that long when the light by the bed snaps on, and there's the doc, all bare-armed and glowy skin and head mussed like he's been half-asleep and irritable.

He stares and Jayne sets his jaw all firm, and eventually the doc sighs and says, "Come on, then," and Jayne don't need any more encouragement than that.

The doc sits up when Jayne gets close to the bed, folds his legs up under him and gestures to the edge of the bed in front of him. Jayne sits, and reaches for the drawstring on Simon's pants, below where the skin of his belly folds over a little around the muscle, but his hand is slapped away. Before Jayne can complain, the doc's fingers are all cool and pressing against the skin on his shoulders, just beneath the edge of the brace. "This thing is filthy," Simon says, fingers moving from skin to the back of the brace, sensation distant and ticklish like an echo on Jayne's skin beneath it. "And it _stinks_. What have you been _doing?_"

"Nothing but enjoying your sister's home-cooked meals," Jayne growls, and Simon ignores him, as he's liable to do when Jayne is saying anything say about River.

"You did take it off to bathe, didn't you?" He begins tugging at the straps, the tear of the velcro filling the acoustics in the small room. Jayne shifts uncomfortably.

"You didn't say nothing 'bout takin' it off for anything," he says gruffly, and Simon gives another sigh, and then the brace is hinged open and pulled away and his head is suddenly loose and wobbly, like them geisha dolls they'd shipped not long ago, one of which still happens to be in Jayne's bunk, giving him a good chance to figure her workings.

The doc's fingers rub through the sweaty hair at the nape of his neck and he pushes back into it before he can stop himself, then makes himself stop, scowl, when he tips his head into it enough that he can see the doc's smug grin.

"It ain't funny," Jayne growls, but still can't bring himself to shake off the doc's touch. Not that any other part of his body but his pride is suggesting he do that.

"You're right," Simon says, hand dropping to hang by hooked fingers from the neck of Jayne's tee-shirt. "It's filthy. Sweaty. Clammy. Smelly. Disgusting."

The bones in Jayne's neck pop a little as he turns his head, at last, and then the rest of his upper body, twisting it around to leer right in the doc's face. "Far as I remember it, that seems to be how you like it best," he makes his voice low, growling the words out through his grin.

The doc raises an eyebrow for a brief moment, and then Jayne's pushing him back onto the bed, and Simon's letting him.

**Author's Note:**

> http://hopeful-fiction.livejournal.com/34212.html


End file.
